


burn the sorrow from your eyes

by Nokomis



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, magically alive! erica and boyd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-15
Updated: 2013-09-15
Packaged: 2017-12-26 14:44:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/967168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nokomis/pseuds/Nokomis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Erica and Boyd come back and have no idea why everyone is so traumatized about their vacation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	burn the sorrow from your eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Written for lady-writes, who provided the summary/prompt. <3 Set post-3A. Originally posted on [tumblr](http://nokomiss.tumblr.com/post/61209687188/lady-writes-replied-to-your-post-so-lovely).

Really, the first clue that something was awry was the fact that Derek greets them with a hug. Singular. Derek Hale, king of being the distant observer in all social situations, initiated a _group hug_.

Erica manages to catch Boyd's eye as Derek squeezes them hard enough that her feet lift off the ground. Boyd gives her an "I have not the slightest freaking idea," look, and pats Derek carefully on the back. Or maybe he's trying to tap out. Erica isn't quite sure.

Then Derek lets them go and says, "I missed you."

He looks so sincere. They're standing around the pumps at a gas station, and Derek Hale is handing out physical affection like that's something that _happens_ , and he missed them. 

Erica manages to hold in a snort as Boyd says wryly, "Yeah, we cried into our pillows, too."

Derek doesn't even snark back. He just watches them like they've somehow lightened the load on his soul, and Erica is thoroughly creeped out, okay, she misses Derek's usual look, like he’s someone who has been wrongfully thrust into a position of responsibility. 

And then a girl who can only be Cora climbs out of the passenger seat of the Camaro, and Erica watches as her face goes from the dour resting face that all Hales seem to share to a broad smile. She launches herself at Boyd, and Erica watches, hip cocked, as Boyd easily wraps his arms around her and smiles.

They watched over each other in the vault after Erica left, and Erica gives Cora a grateful smile as Boyd releases her. She never got a chance to thank her for being there for Boyd.

"You're back," Cora says, voice raw with emotion.

Boyd nods, and Erica leans against the car. Derek and Cora both look shocked to see them, and then, slowly...

The shock fades, and they bid a casual goodbye, returning to their car.

Erica glances over at Boyd. "That was weird for you, too, right?"

Boyd nods thoughtfully. "Think something strange went down while we were gone?"

"It's Beacon Hills," Erica says flatly. "Of course it did."

They leave it at that.

*

When Erica steps into the school on Monday morning, dreading the mountain of catch-up she's going to have from missing so many classes, everyone's heads keep swiveling her direction.

There's a different sort of awe on the faces from when she sauntered in after her transformation, and she subtly checks out her outfit a few times, but it's her normal clothes, and her hair is in place, and she doesn't know why a sophomore goes out of her way to clasp Erica's hand and tell her she'd prayed for her.

She finally sees Isaac lurking around Allison Argent's locker, and she strides up to him, ready to demand an answer as to why everyone is acting so fucking weird around her, and instead his face sort of... brightens. "Erica, are you really..."

And then she's pulled into another hug, with Isaac's spidermonkey arms wrapped tightly around her, so that she feels like she's going to possibly suffocate against his admittedly cozy sweater.

"Can't breathe," she mumbles against his chest, flailing her arms a little to try to get his attention. Seriously, shit has gotten surreal. Erica does not live the type of life where she is randomly bear-hugged. 

Isaac hastily lets her go, checking her over to make sure she’s okay. "I missed you so much."

He still looks like he can't quite believe she's real, and Erica bursts out with, "What the fuck happened around here?"

Isaac blinks. "You..."

His voice trails off as he looks up, and Boyd's there, touching Erica's elbow lightly, as if to steady her. Erica pulls her arm away; she's got this. "I _what_?"

Isaac blinks again, and this time... something shifts within him, and he shakes his head, as though to clear out cobwebs. "I'm not sure. Hey, have you seen Allison? She was supposed to meet me here a few minutes ago."

"Nope," Erica says, and doesn't push it. She's a werewolf in a town where jocks can turn into the Creature from the Black Lagoon. She's not going to blow a few odd reactions out of proportion.

*

The same thing happens at lunch. Stiles gapes at her in a way that would have made her launch herself at him just a few months ago, and now makes her want to ruffle his hair and tell him he's going to catch flies like that. She glances over at Boyd as he sets his tray down next to hers.

"Oh my god," Stiles says, eyes bouncing back and forth between them like he thinks they'll disappear if he stops looking at them.

"Do you greet everyone like this?" Boyd asks, "because you might want to think about this in relation to your lack of friends."

Stiles doesn't even seem to register the insult. Instead he casts his eyes quickly around the room, obviously looking for someone. Then after a moment, he finds him.

"Scott!" Stiles says loudly, waving at Scott across the room. "Come, quick! Erica and Boyd!"

And then Scott comes loping across the room, setting his lunch down with a clatter as he stands behind Erica and Boyd and drapes his arms across their shoulders, pulling them into a half-hug.

"Hi?" Erica says.

Boyd shrugs and goes with it. 

"You _guys_ ," Scott says, heart-felt. He squeezes them close. "I'm so freaking glad you're back."

"Good to see you, too," Boyd tells him, and it isn't even his humoring tone. She reaches over and pats him on the knee. Boyd's love of Scott is downright adorable.

Then Scott sits down, and he and Stiles start talking about their new English sub, like Erica and Boyd had never been away.

After lunch, Erica lingers at the table until Stiles and Scott leave, then she hisses at Boyd, "Okay, something is definitely rotten in the state of Beacon Hills."

Boyd nods. "I think I know who we need to go see."

Then Lydia Martin walks by, doubles-back, and tells Erica, "Your hair looks really cute."

Then she beams at Boyd and strolls off.

Erica shakes her head. "Did we accidentally slip dimensions?"

Boyd sighs. "Sad thing is, that's probably an option."

Their lives, seriously.

*

The rest of the day passes somewhat normally, though that probably has a lot to do with the fact that Erica has apparently gotten used to people staring at her like she's just risen out of the grave, before their expressions fade into normalcy.

The only normal greeting she gets is from Danny, which means that he glances her way briefly and doesn't say anything to her. Apparently he hadn't noticed her absence. It’s actually a relief.

She meets up with Boyd in the parking lot at the end of the day, and he has a pinched expression on his face. 

"You okay?"

"Those twins," Boyd begins, then pauses. "They apologized to me and gave me a Reese's cup."

"For locking you up?" Erica asks. She totally deserves candy for that, too, where are those baby-faced bastards?

"They didn't say," Boyd says, "but I got the impression it was something worse? They looked super guilty, and I barely saw them down in the vault. I think we need to go see Deaton."

Erica nods. Seriously, they'd been gone a while, but it wasn't like they'd told everyone they were never coming back. Though admittedly, her memories were hazy in the time right before she'd left. She couldn't actually remember much beyond the vault, but she was free and whole and had been with Boyd, so she must have escaped somehow.

She sees Isaac slouching across the parking lot, and Allison Argent is there, tucked up tight against him.

She catches Allison's eye, and...

Allison reacts differently from everyone else. Her eyes widen, but it's a different kind of shock. Not delighted, more... 

Like she'd been expecting to see them.

She turns her head away, ignoring Erica.

"Did you see..." Erica begins, but Boyd is already in the car. She climbs in beside him, and they head to the vet's office.

*

Deaton isn't surprised to see them. There's no burst of emotion, no strange shift in expression.

Erica is pretty sure that Deaton is responsible for whatever the fuck happened to them.

She swings herself up on the table as Boyd explains the situation, and bangs her heels against the metal side to punctuate his statements.

Deaton listens calmly, then says, "I think you'd be happier not knowing."

"Someone says that, and that means you have to know," Erica says. The guidance counselor had told her something similar, right before breaking the news about the video going viral amongst the students.

Boyd nods, and Erica knows he's thinking about the ache that comes from never truly knowing what happened to his sister. Neither of them are shrinking violets, and hearing some bad news isn't going to break them.

Deaton sighs. "There was a spell."

"That you and Allison did," Erica suggests, just to see the sharp glance Deaton sends her way. "Not just a pretty face over here, you know."

Deaton purses his lips. "What do you remember? From recently. Last week, the month before that."

"I was with Boyd," she says, confused. They'd gone off together, to avoid the mess of chaos and death that Beacon Hills had become, and things had been nice. Peaceful, really.

"Specifically where?" Deaton presses.

"We were..." Erica trails off, then looks at Boyd, confused. "Um. It was very nice there."

Deaton turns to Boyd. "Where was Erica at the beginning of the school year?"

"She was..." Boyd looks thoughtful. "She wasn't there, but I can't remember where she was."

"When did you meet up with her?" Deaton presses.

"After the fight at Derek's," Boyd says without hesitation, then furrows his brow. "But... That doesn't.. we were together the whole time."

"But you were in the vault with Cora," Erica says slowly. "Why wasn't I there, too? How did I escape?"

Things are blurry, and the last thing she can remember with any certainty is running towards Kali.

But she... There was no way she had won that fight.

Boyd leans up against the table, reaches over and takes her hand in his. They're the same hands she remembers, but now, for some reason, staring at them, she feels strangely disconnected from her body.

Like she spent time away from it.

"I didn't survive, did I?" she says slowly. Boyd's hand tightens on hers.

"In order to fix things that had become broken," Deaton says calmly, "Scott, Stiles and Allison took part in a ritual that tied them to the nemeton, a tree of power. They sacrificed themselves to it, and the nemeton took on power again."

Boyd's shoulders are stiff, and Erica scoots closer to him, so that the line of her leg, the touch of her hand, the curve of her body are pressed tight against him. She needs to ground him, needs the grounding, for what Deaton is about to say.

There's a dark certainty already churning within her, and Deaton's words are about to make it reality.

"Allison came to me, because in her dreams, she kept seeing certain people rise out of their graves. We determined that the nemeton was responsible for the dreams, that its power was trying to tell us something. When I returned to the nemeton, there was blood on its roots."

"Someone was sacrificed?" Boyd asks.

Deaton nods. "And the nemeton absorbed that power, and we realized that it could be harnessed to repair some of the damage that the Alpha Pack and the Darach had wrought."

"So you raised us from the dead." Erica's voice is barely loud enough to be heard, barely more than an exhale, but beside her, Boyd stiffens. She doesn't let go of his hand.

"I wasn't sure who the nemeton would pick," Deaton admits. "The power was... unfocused."

"Why has everyone forgotten that we died?" Boyd asks. "Why did we forget?"

Deaton shakes his head, "Probably to smooth things over. Raising things from the dead is a huge disruption to the natural order."

"Peter Hale did it," Boyd points out. "Everyone remembers his death."

"He wasn't raised the same way," Deaton says.

“And why Allison?” Boyd asks, and Erica knows he’s thinking about Scott, thinking about the bond they have. She thinks of Stiles holding her while her body shuddered and convulsed, and then thinks of Allison, thinks of the sharp pierce of arrows and her wrists bound to the ceiling. 

“Guilt is a powerful emotion,” Deaton says softly.

And it’s simple as that. Erica takes in a deep breath, and knows she can only do that because of another girl’s guilt. 

"What do we do now?" Erica says. Her voice sounds small, and she realizes that she's hunching her shoulders, like she had before, when she wanted to be invisible. 

She expects Deaton to have an answer, but it’s Boyd who speaks.

"Live," 

He lets go of her hand to wrap his arm around her, to press his forehead against hers.

She _died_ and she can't even remember it. She squares her shoulders. She's not going to be frightened of that thought. She's a werewolf, she's powerful and bold and she's not going to let something like her own forgotten death interfere with her life.

"Live," she agrees, and presses her lips to his.


End file.
